A Bright Future Ahead

Jessica Turnbull presents her optimistic vision of Australia's future: 

“Can we fix it? Yes we can!” -Obama/Bob the Builder

In a charming article for the New Zealand Herald, right wing academic Johan Norberg lauded the progress of humanity by writing:

“I’m not just saying that the glass is half full rather than half empty. I’m saying it used to be empty.”

LOL. Classic line. But seriously, he’s completely right.

While hot political topics come and go and the right in Australia may suffer through differences of opinion on climate change, a republic or privatising time, Norberg’s message of hope and optimism eternally binds all liberals and conservatives who believe that humans, while imperfect, can eventually muddle through towards ever-increasing decency and prosperity given freedom and a bit of good precedent.

Tragically, educators continue to encourage the elitist attitude that to be intelligent or ‘well informed’, one must be cynical. While there is no doubt that there are many very clever people who are famous cynics, there is also no doubt that there are fair few intellectually lazy people out there who think that proclaiming everything from capitalism to other people’s Youtube efforts to be ‘completely f@#$%^’ constitutes a valuable contribution to society.  There is no better evidence for the ever-growing popularity of hubristic cynicism than the rise and rise of the militant atheist movement.

So, what is the danger of thinking the worst of your neighbour or your country? Peter Pan makes a good point when he tells Wendy, “Every time you say you don’t believe in fairies, another fairy somewhere drops down dead”. When we are suspicious of others, when we refuse to try and see the good or the good intentions in people or institutions, we can degenerate into a society where we absolve ourselves of individual responsibility for solving community problems. We feel uninspired to contribute and we stifle the efforts of ‘go getters’ (as my Dad calls them) by presuming a perverse motivation behind their ventures which may not be correct. This can all happen. It does happen in other parts of the world; trust breaks down and people really are out for themselves. The point of this article is not to argue that humanity is inherently good but that we have just as great a capacity for good as we do for evil and that, in Australia at least, we have so much in our history and in our future to be proud of.

Western liberal democracies aren’t perfect. Left wingers LOVE to point out some of the admittedly undeniable corruption and hypocrisy of America, which is fair enough. However, they are wrong when they fail to admit that despite some obvious historical injustices, America is, as are most other Western liberal democracies, a force for good. Just because hypocrisy occurs, it doesn’t cancel out all good. People and societies can be simultaneously very inspired and very flawed. It was a long time between the development of ideals of liberty and equality of freedom (Christian notions of dignifying freedom rather than self-important survival-of-the-fittest anarchy) and their application to women. However, this doesn’t mean that they weren’t pretty good first steps that we can draw inspiration from.

We have come so far thanks to capitalism bounded by a strong sense of morality that appeals just as strongly to any well adjusted individual than any temptation of selfishness or depravity. If the phenomenal success of Harry Potter is anything to go by, love, sacrifice and community still have a corner in the heart of almost everyone. Like the protagonists, Harry Potter readers are imperfect heroes who, underneath some bad things (remember how Ron treated Padma at the Yule Ball?) they do, are fundamentally good. The beautiful Snape story, the charm and humour and the ultimate happy ending are just some of the elements responsible for the thousands of members on the Post Harry Potter Depression support group on facebook. Myself included.

In Australia, society has evolved from the bad old days of sexism and genocide taking only the best bits of our traditions and values, of which there are many. This is a moral evolution just as real as any physical one. We can expect great things from ours, the Harry Potter generation, just like the generations before us. Yes, we might be a little slow on responding to climate change but history suggests that we’ll get there in the end. So long as everyone pitches in in good faith and we keep up respect for ideals and institutions refined over a history of overwhelming success, we will solve all our problems.   

Jessica Turnbull is a 20 year old student who "loves Australia and Harry Potter". This is an unedited entry into our $750 for 750 words contest. 

Comments

[Pom]

1.

Good old solid Jess

[Jonno]

2.

FAIL.

Pom are you saying she's old and fat? I didn't pick that up, but I did pretty quickly pick up the obvious fact that this is poorly researched, emotive and intellectually lazy.

Congratulations to Menzies House for publishing this and proving that even people like Jess are allowed to have an opinion.

[GID]

3.

Jessica, I'm sure you mean well, but please stop bashing atheists. There are many atheists (like me) who are not left leaning. There is no such thing as a "militant atheist". This is a lazy label applied because atheists are finally gaining a voice. Are Christians who voice an opinion, militant? No. So stop generalising.

[joe clark]

4.

Great essay.